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Finders, snoopers.

If you found a phone in a restaurant bathroom and couldn't find the owner, what would you do? According to a recent experiment by Symantec, half of you would contact the owner to return the phone. Bravo! But more than half of you would likely succumb to the desire to snoop into the life of the smartphone owner by surfing through the apps and files therein. In a fascinating piece over at MSNBC, Bob Sullivan recounts what happened when Symantec intentionally "lost" 50 spyware-loaded phones in big cities in the U.S. and the Great White North. Based on the results, it appears that celeb hacker Christopher Chaney isn't the only one addicted to spying.

Symantec's unwitting guinea pigs happened upon the smartphone bait on benches, in elevators and in bathrooms. According to MSNBC, "89 percent of finders clicked on something they probably shouldn't have." Unsurprisingly (?), the majority of the snoops were more interested in finding nude photos than in raiding someone's bank account:

Some 43 percent of finders clicked on an app labeled "online banking." And 53 percent clicked on a file named "HR salaries." A file named "saved passwords" was opened by 57 percent of finders. Social networking tools and personal e-mail were checked by 60 percent. And a folder labeled "private photos" tempted 72 percent.

Should you unwisely keep naked photos on your phone (or computer), be sure to put them in a folder with a title that will discourage peeking, such as "Meals I've Eaten," "Me and Granny," or "Kenny G's Greatest Hits."

When we think we're not being watched, we give in to dark impulses. Of course, it's possible that some of those snooping in email and social networking files were doing so in order to identify the owner and return the phone (or at least, that's what they told themselves while they were doing it). Kevin Haley, director at Symantec’s security response team, tells MSNBC that he was unsurprised by the snooping: “At the end of the day people’s curiosity is so strong, if you present them with the opportunity, they will do it."

And that, my friends, is why you should immediately put a password on your phone, whether to protect it from some stranger who finds it in the future or from your equally curious friends and loved ones.